


What is Lost

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Series: On Magic in Auradon [5]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Jay And Evie Get Full Names, Multi, Now That That's Out Of The Way, TEACH THOSE KIDS SOME MAGIC GODDAMNIT, They both know, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, also, and consent, and evie and mal are a thing, and she is tired of filing them down, and so are mal and ben, bc fuck you, cursing, everyone is kinda miserable, evie's magic is an asshole, jane has sharp teeth, lemme scream about magic some more, mal gets some comeuppance, mal is just poly, there is no cheating, they don't know what to do with their magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 04:17:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13696698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: Uma's legs itch and she pulls her knees to her chest, to the stuttering of her heart, her magic resting under her clavicle, her rage locked behind her teeth.Jay's magic is useless without anyone wishing, and it roars in his blood, bangs against his wrist cuffs, it wants out, out out of this body, this is not the right body, will never be the right body, why do you insist on legs.The icy cold behind Jane's teeth is snarling and hissing and trying to break free, but she files her teeth until they are blunt and human and harmless, ties her screaming wings to her back and drapes herself in pastel blue dresses.Evie’s magic sits in her hip bones, sizzling and eating away at her. Die, it screams, flies around her and into Chad’s chest. Die die die die.Mal’s hair grows back green, the exact shade her eyes flash in and she cuts all the violet off with a pair of rusty scissors until her mother doesn’t look back at her from the mirror. Her magic gathers in her mouth like acidic bile.





	What is Lost

Uma is dry. (Godess, how she hates it, the wind blowing through her hair, the stench of something dead and something that has yet to die in her nose.)

Her legs itch and she pulls her knees to her chest, to the stuttering of her heart, her magic resting under her clavicle, her rage locked behind her teeth.

“This isn’t me”, she says when Gil sits down next to her and put his head on her shoulder. “These legs aren’t mine.” Her throat feels empty, and bared, and she grits her teeth.

“They took it from you”, her mother says, fingers curled around Flotsam, who is sneering at Gil, her skin tinted purple. “They took your magic from you before you were even born.” She curls a tentacle around Uma’s waist. Gil’s hand hovers over his sword. “You must live with that, my little fish.”

Uma thinks about her mother’s tentacles (six, she counted them, six, like the cousins she didn’t want dead) and about the smell of rotten shrimp in her nose. She looks at her legs, then she pulls Gil away.

Her magic roars against her bones, in her ears and Harry pulls her close to his chest. “Captain”, he says.

[Later, when she jumps into the sea and swims through the barrier, heart beating high in her throat, the hollowness in her chest is suddenly filled and her magic wraps itself around her, wild and untrained and _furious._

She is home.]

 

Spell the king. Taunt the fairy. Smile until your teeth hurt. Do not let your magic do what it wants ( _smash and burn and drown and curse_ ).

Make him drop the barrier.

Do not lose control.

Do not lose.

_Do not-_

Watch her kiss the king, lilac hair between his fingers, adoration in his eyes, listen to her plead, say she understands, she knows, she only wishes to help. Your dress and your legs itch.

Jump into the water, feel it welcome you with caressing touches and loving songs.

Drown them.

Drown them all and their entitlement, drown them in their _lies_. Drown the traitors, drown the man who was once a Beast, who is now scared of the curse in his blood, drown the fairy who binds her wings to her back and hides magic behind walls of glass and smiles.

(She looks so human like this, clutching her wand as if it was just a stick, pastel blue dress clinging to her legs, screaming.)

 

Mal turns into a dragon in a cloud of green smoke and Uma feels her heart drop. _Harry_ , she thinks. _Gil_.

She doesn’t kill them. Instead, she ties her magic to her ribs and returns the ring. _Oh Godess,_ she thinks as she watches Mal roar and snarl. _Let me weep._

She doesn’t go home. (She tries, oh, how she tries, but not even with eight tentacles and raging, burning magic can she break the barrier.) “You can’t break spells cast by fae”, her mother said, when Uma was still small enough to fit all of herself and worry within her mother’s tentacles, felt safe in them, and secure. “Incompatible magic can do no such thing.”

 _Stupid fucking fairies_ , she thinks and watches Harry bark orders, watches Gil smile and laugh despite it all.

 

* * *

 

 

Jay’s hands have always felt like a forest fire sizzling under his nails. The bands around his wrists are cool and secure, keep him grounded and shackled to this isle. (“They are a trap”, his father says and spits tobacco into the corner. _They are my safety_ , Jay thinks.)

“Do not butcher your name, Jadid”, his father says, his fingers curled tightly around Jay’s throat. “Don’t you dare cut off parts of it.” _Don’t be soft_ , his eyes say and Jay kicks his father in the groin.

“Let go of me”, he says. “Don’t you dare touch me.” His father straightens his collar and sneers.

“Stock up the shelves, son”, he says and pats Jay’s cheek.

 

(I wish for a child with fingers as fast as the winds.)

Stealing is as easy as breathing. A smile here, a slip of the finger here, run fast, run far, do not get caught.

(I wish for a child as beautiful as the Princess Jasmine.)

The girls giggle behind scarred hands, Uma scowls and scowls, snaps her teeth at him. Carlos trips over a trashcan. Jay laughs.

(I wish for a powerful child.)

There is a pulsating heat in his fingertips, itching, urging him higher and higher. So he climbs walls, prances across roofs and does backflips.

“You stay in the air a little too long sometimes”, Carlos says and Jay ruffles his hair and laughs. His wrist cuffs are cool and soothing. Mal rolls her eyes and pulls an oil lamp out of the trash can.

“Huh”, she says. “Who would throw that away?”

 _Shit_ , Jay thinks.

 

Mal doesn’t realise what it is, thank _fucking_ God. The lamp doesn’t much care. So when she wishes for his loyalty, Jay obliges, with a smile and a flip of his hair. Mal’s hair seems a shade darker, suddenly.

Evie joins them, later, quivering lips and royal blue hair. She smiles and flutters her eyelashes. “I’m Princess Genevieve”, she says and Carlos stumbles over her name three times. Jay’s wrist cuffs grow colder in her presence, the sizzling heat in his fingers curls into itself.

“You’re the Evil Queen’s daughter.”

She hums. “Call me Evie.”

(Mal’s second wish is succeeding in getting the wand, when they stand before the waiting limousine.)

When they drive through the barrier, Jay’s arms around the three of them, his heartbeat loud in his ears, he wants to rip the lamp from Mal’s jacket, wants to hold it tightly to his chest. He feels like floating, like there is a weight on his feet pulling him down.

His magic is useless without anyone wishing, and it roars in his blood, bangs against his wrist cuffs, it wants out, out out of this body, this is not the right body, will never be the right body, why do you insist on _legs_.

So he plays tourney, pushes weights and carries Carlos, who runs from dogs and people and a fairy who blunted her teeth until he doesn’t anymore. Until he turns around, clutches the dog to his chest and faces his mother, with her clawed hands and her bone shattering laughter.

[They choose _good_ , shoulders bumped up against one another, Evie’s bony hand on his back, his magic crawling in his skin, reaching for Mal, whose eyes are on Ben and the wand.]

 

* * *

 

Jane’s wings are 3, no, 4 years old and she hasn’t used them once. The icy cold behind her teeth is snarling and hissing and trying to break free, but she files her teeth until they are blunt and human and harmless, ties her screaming wings to her back and drapes herself in pastel blue dresses.

“Magic is not the way to gain anything, darling”, her mother says, lips twitching. “True knowledge lies in books.”

 _Human books_ , Jane thinks and ties her belt a little too tight. _As if we’re human._ She drapes her hair over her ears and holds her head low. Chad bumps into her, grins at her and she wants to snap at him, oh, how she wants to dress him in the rags his mother wore until they fell off of her, how she wants to let go of the ropes around her heart, chaining the cold to her hipbones.

She can _hear_ Audrey’s heart shattering on the lawn, like a bell singing and falling and clashing. (How must it feel, to lose the person you care about most to someone who _worships_ the fairy who almost killed both your parents, how must it feel to look at eyes flashing green, at violet hair growing darker and darker, at horns, curling around a fairy’s head.) Jane’s teeth ache.

 

Carlos is sweet, holding Dude as if he would shatter if he pressed too hard and Jane has to think about her wings pressed to her skin. She’s sweating. Carlos smiles at her. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other and he pats the floor next to him.

“So”, he says and hands her his bottle. She takes a gulp and coughs. “Is that alcohol?” He shrugs.

“You can keep the bottle.” He grins. “Jay’s already asleep and Evie is declaring her undying love to the mirror.”

Jane sighs. Her teeth still ache, even after they declared themselves good, after Carlos took her to the Cotillion to get her away from her mother, even after Mal has proven that she really does love Ben, after Uma grew and grew and grew to a size that rivalled her mother’s.

She wishes she could just grow, could just fly, could just take off the dress and cut her hair, show the world her ears and her magic and her _teeth._

“I can cut hair, you know.” Carlos takes the bottle and drinks from it. “Could give you a pixie cut.” Jane shoves him and laughs.

Then she says yes.

 

* * *

 

 

Evie’s magic sits in her hip bones, sizzling and eating away at her. “Our magic isn’t natural”, her mother says and corrects her posture. “We are human, we are not made for magic.” She starts brushing Evie’s hair. “But remember, Genevieve, to be proud of it.” Evie nods and starts applying her make up. Her mother slaps her hand. “That’s the wrong colour, Genevieve”, she says sharply, her eyes hard and cold.

“Forgive me, mother.”

 

Mal is prettyprettypretty, God, so _pretty_ and Evie thinks she might drop her own heart in front of her heels. Her magic pulls at her, curls away from Jay, who rubs his wrists. ( _djinn_ , the mirror’s voice whispers, somewhere deep inside of her. _djinn wearing human skin, kill it, kill it, kill it._ ) She smiles at him instead, walks into this friendship deliberately with heels clicking on cracking concrete and her hands running through his hair, braiding it.

They practise flirting with one another, Evie’s fluttering eyelashes and Jay’s smouldering looks, Evie’s walk and Jay’s smile. Evie teaches him how to kiss, he teaches her how to make her fingers faster, faster, teaches her his way with words.

Carlos flops on his lap and sleeps for six hours straight. Jay plays with his hair absentmindedly and Mal laughs. Evie bandages his legs and her magic curls around her fingers, itching. _Go away,_ she wants to say. _You can’t help me here. Get back into the mirror._

 

“It won’t work for you, silly”, she smiles and snatches the mirror from Chad. Her magic roars in her ears. _Stupid prince, thinks he can use me_. She slips the mirror into her purse and leans in for a kiss.

Her sewing is perfect. Not a thread hanging, not a wrong seam, colours matching perfectly, her magic humming in every stitch. “It brings out your eyes”, Mal says and Evie smiles, smiles, smiles, her red lips curling and Lonnie turns around again.

Chemistry is easy, easier than applying make up or eating or picking out the right clothes. It’s as if her fingers know what to do, know the ingredients and all the elements. (She cheats, _of course_ she cheats, she can’t seem smarter than Chad, he wouldn’t want her anymore, so she pretends it isn’t easy, isn’t like breathing.

Instead, she thinks of Dizzy and how much she looks like Anastasia, who pulled her aside a week into the school year, a worried look on her face. “Is my sister alright?”, she asked. “Is she away from mother?” Evie didn’t answer.)

She can feel her magic living in her bones, sizzling in her flesh, and when she uses her mirror again, when Chad calls her a gold digger and Jay a sadist, she snarls and lets go of it. _Die,_ her magic screams, flies around her and into Chad’s chest. _Die die die die._

 

* * *

 

Mal’s hair grows back green, the exact shade her eyes flash in and she cuts all the violet off with a pair of rusty scissors until her mother doesn’t look back at her from the mirror. _Fuck you, mother_.

“Evie?” She pulls aside the curtain to Evie’s bed. “Can I talk to you?” Evie puts her book ( _A Short History of Nearly Everything_ ) aside and nods.

“What’s up, Mal?” She sits up and straightens her collar.

“About me running off to the Isle without telling anyone -” She takes a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize. To you, to Carlos, to Jay, to Ben. I didn’t think and I made you all come back to get me. I’m sorry.”

Evie sighs. “Thank you for your apology”, she says and kisses Mal’s nose. “But don’t you think you owe one to Ben, Audrey and Uma, before me?”

Mal’s magic gathers in her mouth like acidic bile. “Why the _fuck_ would I apologize to _Uma and Audrey?_ ”

“You spelled Audrey’s boyfriend.” Evie furrows her brows.

“We were evil.”

“You bullied Uma for years and then you left her and all the others on the Isle.”

“You’re making a list.”

Evie sighs. “You can’t pick and choose who to apologize to, M.” She kisses Mal’s cheek and leaves the room. Mal’s magic reaches out for her, wants to curl around Evie’s waist and never let her go.

Instead, she stands in front of the mirror, looks at her hair and the way she stands and, for the first time in her life, stands up straight. _Fairies are small, are tiny, your human half is mudding you_ , her mother is saying, sneering, spitting and Mal spits back. Fuck you, mother.

She asks Chad for Audrey’s phone number the next morning and he furrows his brows, scowls. He gives her the number anyway.

Mal spends three hours calling and hanging up when she hears Audrey’s voice. _Fuck fuck fuck._

“If this is another prank call, I swear to fucking God, I will -”

“Hi.” Mal’s voice sounds weak in her ears and small.

“What do _you_ want?” Mal bites her lower lip and takes a deep breath.

 

(She apologizes to Ben, too, brings him chocolate and makes him pudding en flambé, which is the hardest thing she ever did in her life, not even staring down her mother comes close. He smiles and forgives her in a heartbeat and she takes a leap of faith and tells him why she spelled him in the first place. His smile falls.)

 

When she apologizes to Jay, in a hushed voice, her hair growing darker and darker, he just smiles and says it’s fine. She looks at the oil lamp on her jacket and thinks about his father and his fists. She rips the lamp off and hands it to him. “I don’t need it anymore“, she says, and looks at him. “I wish for you to be free.“ He smiles and bows. “Thank you, Maleficent“, he says and her hair grows another shade darker.

 

They find Uma hunting just offshore. She has discarded her gown, has opened the braids in her hair and is diving after a tuna. Jay’s hand is secure on Mal’s shoulder and she shivers. Carlos smiles at her.

“Uma!”, she calls and a tentacle wraps around her waist, drags her into the shallow water. Uma’s teeth are bared, a sharp stone in her hand and her chest is rising and falling rapidly. “ _What_ ”, she snarls, “do you _want_?”

“I want to apologize”, Mal says and the tentacle around her waist loosens a bit.

“We’re bringing everyone off the isle”, says Evie and takes a step back. “Ben is signing the list.”


End file.
